Todd kissed Cornelia on both cheeks. There was the taste of sweat and salt on her cheeks and the smell of last night’s perfume – a flowery J’adore by Christian Dior. It reminded him of California and his garden full of jasmine and honeysuckle. He lingered a second or two longer than he should have. Cornelia smiled, moving her face slightly to the right as so as their lips nearly touched.
“Why don’t you come for a swim? It’s the best time of the day.” She took his hand and urged him towards a gap in the wall which would allow him to walk easily on the sand. The waves were soaking into the sand as they broke making hardly a sound – only the gentlest hiss and fizz before the next one arrived and disappeared.
“I didn’t bring any trunks.”
“Don’t be a fool. Who’s looking?
Todd glanced at the café where he had planned to buy croissants. A voluptuous black waitress waved at him.
“Who’s looking? Cornelia repeated, pulling him onto the sand.
He felt slightly annoyed that his brown leather Barkers were covered in sand. Cornelia danced ahead of him. She looked younger from behind. He followed her to the water’s edge, placed his bag inside her basket and removed the Barkers, striped blue and white socks, cream shorts, vest and Paul Smith flowery shirt.
Cornelia removed her bikini top, threw it onto the sand and dived into the smooth water – disappearing beneath the surface for a few seconds. When she bobbed up, she waved the bottom of her bikini into the air and shouted.
“I’m waiting for you.”
Todd glanced at the café. The waitress was inside. There was no-one around – the only sign of life apart from Cornelia’s head bobbing in the sea, was a scraggy terrier dog which ran quickly past him without so much as giving Todd a glance. He quickly removed his underpants and dived into the water. It was slightly cold, but exhilarating. He felt an incredible sense of freedom as his body slipped through the waves which caressed him with a soft and silky-finger touch. He instinctively spread his arms into a strong breast stroke, making a frog stroke with his legs and quickly closing the gap between himself and Cornelia. Cornelia flapped weakly in the water, one arm lifelessly being raised and then slapping the water as her head bobbed up and down. She rolled onto her back and cackled at him, gulping at the air as the seagulls swirled in circles above them.
♥
An hour later, Todd pressed his face against the sitting room window and watched Barry fill a kettle with water. He felt that warm glow flicker in his stomach and noticed that his heart was fluttering. He knocked gently on the window, holding the brown bag with the croissants high for Barry to see. Barry turned around as though in slow motion, waved at Todd, smiled, dried his hands on a towel and ambled towards the front door.
“You’ve been for a swim.”
Todd threw himself onto the sofa, “No. I’ve had my weekly shower whether I needed it or not.”
Barry rummaged in a drawer for two napkins.
Todd got to his feet, walked to the patio, sat at the table and, accepting a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, asked.
“Where’s Cornelia?”
“She’s having a swim and then is going to help Angelina in the gallery.”
♥
From the gallery Angelina looked onto the patio. There was an olive tree immediately in front of the window. The olives were plump and green. They would continue growing for another two months before being harvested. A small pink rose looked as if it needed watering. She stepped into the patio and picked up the garden hose as Cornelia arrived, drying her hair with a beach towel which she then threw on top of the kitchen table.
“Coffee?” Cornelia shouted from the back door.
Angelina switched the water off.
“An expresso would be perfect.”
They sat sipping coffee. Cornelia deeply breathed in the jasmine scent hanging heavily in the air as her eyes followed Angelina’s well defined collarbone, her long and slender neck leading to a heart shaped jaw-line, and then a broad smiling mouth, long narrow nose, hazel green eyes, covered in white glitter and framed with curling blue mascara.
Angelina’s face coloured slightly. She moved in the chair trying to find a more comfortable position.
“I could sit here all day, but I have to work. I need to have the exhibition ready for Gurtha’s return.”
Cornelia ignored her desire to start working, asking instead,
“Do you miss Argentina?”
“Some things, yes – conversations with friends, talking about poetry, philosophy and the meaning of life. I also miss the fact that there is no-one here who really knows me – friends from childhood or university – connections with people that go back years. When you leave your own country, you’re uprooted. You are forced to live in a pot which you have chosen rather than in the earth you were born from. Human beings come out of the earth like an orange tree or a sheep – everything comes out of the land. I think you must lose something by leaving the land which gave birth to you.”
She brushed a few olive leaves which had fallen onto the table to the ground.
“I know that I am not at home here, but on the other hand, I don’t miss the chaos, the violence, the uncertainty of Argentina. I regret mistakes I have made being here. I don’t think I would have made them in Argentina.”
Cornelia tousled her drying hair.
“What mistakes?”
Angelina, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, rocked the chair onto its two back legs, lightening the tone of her response.
“Mistakes born of loneliness and opportunity. Maybe if I had stayed in Argentina there would have been different mistakes born of something else – maybe fear and frustration. Who knows? But then I haven’t met anyone yet who hasn’t made mistakes. Have you?”
Cornelia shook her head, remained silent, looking into the coffee cup resting in her hands.
Angelina jerked the chair back onto its four legs which had the effect of making the question which followed sound like an interrogation.
“You’ve never said why you left England – what made you come here?”
Cornelia’s shoulders shuddered as if she had been touch by a cold breeze.
“The weather says it all doesn’t it? It’s dull, grey and boring. I was glad to get out of there after Henry’s death.”
Angelina looked up at the rectangle of blue sky above the patio.
“I don’t know whether it is important or not where you live. Argentina is, after all, beautiful. Maybe I should have stayed there and appreciated what was good about it. There’s beauty everywhere if you can only open your eyes. Look.”
Angelina pointed to an aloe vera stridently growing to her left – dagger shaped leaves pushing energetically towards the blue sky. It sprouted two new leaves unfolding from a lighter green scroll. A hummingbird hawk-moth hovered over a lilac bush holding itself steady, with orange and grey wings whirring, and a small eye like a fish looking directly at Angelina.
“If there is beauty everywhere – maybe what makes a place special is more the quality of our relationships.”
Cornelia gathered up the cups and saucers and nodded.
“That may be true. However, there is no guarantee that the people we chose to live with or who we find ourselves living with will bring out the best in us, or us in them – is there?”
Angelina followed Cornelia into the kitchen.
“There’s no guarantee but there’s always the possibility that they can. It depends upon how we circle around them.”
Cornelia washed the cups and saucers and without looking at Angelina asked,
“What do you mean by ‘circle around them’?”
“Well, everything is about relationship – how we move with others. If you think about an atom it has neutrons, protons and electrons circling around one another in space. It’s mysterious how that movement holds together. Yet we can split the atom and release an immense destructive energy. Maybe relationships are like that – we can circle around one ano
ther in a magical dance of enjoying life or we can destroy one another.”
Cornelia placed the cups on a drying rack.
“It’s well seen that you studied Philosophy at University. Do you not think that there’s a danger if you think about things too deeply that you can go crazy?”
Angelina laughed.
“What’s the danger of not thinking deeply?”
Cornelia wiped her hands on the drying towel.
“I don’t see danger. We need to be able to act quickly to protect ourselves – to survive. Thinking slows us down. Coming from Argentina – you know that the world is unpredictable – we need to move – do things to survive.”
DAY 7
“DON’T BE SATISFIED WITH STORIES, HOW THINGS HAVE GONE WITH OTHERS. UNFOLD YOUR OWN MYTH.”
J RUMI
PADDY’S MOOD improved on the flight to Palma. He passed Gurtha a rolled up bundle of notes - three hundred pounds in total which he had borrowed from the Credit Union. Gurtha placed the notes in Paddy’s hand and gently pushed his hand away.
“Dad – what about the coal bill? You keep it.” He lifted his wallet. “This is for you.” Gurtha pressed a hundred euros into Paddy’s hand.
“I wish that Nuala were here.” He shook his head, placing the sterling notes into the left pocket of his jacket and the euros into the right pocket.
While Paddy slept his first night in La Torretta, Gurtha sat on the sofa alone. He listened to gentle snores from upstairs. It was too warm to light the wood burning stove. He stared at the olive and pine logs in the basket which he would burn if the temperatures dropped.
Lying stretched out on the sofa with Paddy safely in bed upstairs, Gurtha reached for a book by Bede Griffiths, a Benedictine monk who had lived in India. It was a book that he had read before but Gurtha liked to read and re-read books. He liked to feel the words sinking into him, taking root and sprouting new flowers of understanding. He opened the book and read a passage in which Bede talked about a ground of being, an ultimate reality experienced in all of the world’s great religions, which revealed itself beyond thoughts and feelings. It was possible to enter the womb of creation and find that we are all attached to the same belly button. Everyone could experience this but it required the death of our identity as being separate from the world – death to all self-centredness.
Looking at the page he was reading, for a flicker of a moment Gurtha felt that there was no-one reading – only reading. In his body there was a stillness and peace. He closed his eyes. There were no thoughts, only a gentle warm glow of light behind his closed eyelids. His peaceful state was interrupted by a padding, scuffling sound of feet descending the stairs.
“Where am I?”
Paddy stood in front of him, wearing pyjama bottoms and no top. He had his arms crossed over his bare chest. His feet were also bare. His blue eyes were faded – like old postage stamps left too long in the sun.
Gurtha moved slowly to his feet, walking towards Paddy with his arms outstretched.
“It’s OK Dad. You’re here with me – on your holiday in Mallorca.”
“Where’s Nuala?”
“She’s dead, Dad.” Gurtha touched Paddy on the shoulder.
“Where has she gone to?”
“Home.”
Paddy held his arms over his bare chest. His eyes brimmed with tears.
Gurtha gently repeated, “She’s gone home – gone back to where she came from. She’s at peace.”
“Can I go home?” Paddy hugged himself tighter.
“You’ll be home soon. Don’t worry. Home isn’t going to go away.” Gurtha felt his eyes stinging. He blinked several times, turned his head away from Paddy and pointed at the fireplace, “Would you like me to light the fire?”
Paddy nodded, “That would be nice.”
Gurtha searched for the kindling wood in the basket. He threw a newspaper towards Paddy,
“There are no fire lighters. Roll the pages up into balls. You make them tighter than I do.”
On his knees beside Gurtha, Paddy pulled the middle pages of the paper out first and twisted them into dense little planets which he stacked in a careful pile on his right.
DAY 8
SUNDAY 18TH AUGUST 2013
THE NEXT morning, Gurtha laid the table for breakfast in the gazebo. He made a fresh fruit salad with papaya, pineapple, raspberries, heated croissants in the oven and placed a jar of homemade apricot jam which Cornelia had given him on a white porcelain Beleek dish. He found a lighter and ash tray for Paddy. He set a packet of Hamlet cigars beside his coffee cup. Through the front door Gurtha could see Paddy sitting on a chair facing onto the terrace. He was wearing a green woollen V-neck jumper, an orange striped shirt and brown corduroy trousers.
“Dad, you won’t need your jumper in this heat.” Gurtha’s voice was coaxing and gentle. Paddy didn’t reply. Gurtha trod on the sun-warmed pine needles which crunched beneath his feet as he walked towards the house. A tram hooted in the valley below. Sheep ran along the terrace to the right, their bells vigorously clinking, and their feet throwing up a cloud of dust into the olive trees.
“Breakfast is served.” Gurtha took Paddy by the hand. “It’s beautiful outside. Come on, let’s eat. I’m starving.”
Paddy pulled his hand free, pointed at the olive tree, shook his head and asked, “Who’s that man out there looking at me? I’ve seen him before.”
Gurtha swallowed with difficulty. His heart thumped heavily in his chest. He sighed. He walked slowly towards the breakfast table, where a furry black bee hovered over the croissants and then settled on one of the pink roses Paddy had placed in a vase in memory of Nuala. He turned and beckoned to Paddy.
“Breakfast is ready. The croissants are getting cold.”
Paddy, turned around, heading indoors.
Gurtha shouted after him.
“Where are you going?”
Paddy stopped, shuffled to face Gurtha.
“I’ll be down in a minute. I’ve forgotten something.”
In the gazebo, Gurtha lifted a rose from the vase. The water from the stem dripped onto the table cloth before he placed the rose on Paddy’s plate. The drops reminded him of the nights when Nuala blessed the house with Holy Water.
♥
There was one night in particular which came to his mind. Gurtha lay in bed struggling to get to sleep. Nuala with the Holy Water bottle in her hand opened the door of his room and whispered.
“Gurtha – you have to hear this.”
Gurtha threw back the sheets and followed Nuala onto the landing. There was a flight of stairs which led down to a hallway. From the hallway you turned right to enter the sitting room, you walked a few steps further to open the door into the front room parlour or you walked to the front door. Nuala pointed downstairs.
“Listen.”
There was a metallic scratching sound of a key turning in the front door lock, followed by a rasping of the door opening – the wooden frame trailing across the red tiles. Gurtha peered at the door. It was closed. He strained to hear what would happen next. There was the sound of heavy footsteps walking along the hallway, but with the light of the moon shining through the window of the door, it was easy to see that there was no-one there.
Nuala caught Gurtha by the arm and whispered in his ear.
“It’s your father. He’s on his way back home. The Devil is walking ahead of him. Let’s get to bed before he sees us.”
Gurtha climbed into bed. He listened in the darkness to a key turning in the front door, the door opening, then closing, footsteps thumping along the hallway. Paddy slowly climbed the stairs, walked past Nuala’s bedroom, and opened the door into his bedroom.
The next morning not a word was said about what had happened the night before. Nuala poured Gurtha and Paddy a cup of tea. The three of them sat in silence until Paddy got up, put a cap on his head, threw on his raincoat and caught the bus to work.
Nuala patted Gurtha on the hand, “You don’t need to worry abo
ut it. Neither the dead nor the Devil can harm you. It’s the living you need to worry about.”
♥
Gurtha looked at Paddy who stumbled towards him with slow, unsteady steps, arms hanging lifelessly by his side. He arrived at the table, squeezed himself onto the chair. He placed his hands like two door stops on the white table cloth – wrinkled, red with thick blue veins bulging from his wrist to his fingers. Clutched in his right hand was Nuala’s purse.
“I found what I was looking for. There’s nothing in it. Nuala must have taken the money to go shopping.”
♥
After Nuala’s death, Gurtha found her purse buried deep in her black leather handbag amongst a bag of fruit sherberts, rolled up paper handkerchiefs and reading glasses. When he opened the purse he pulled out a Saint Christopher medal, loose change, a twenty pound note and a small white piece of paper which had been folded carefully into four. He unfolded it and immediately recognised Nuala’s handwriting. She had written “Violence against Women” and had noted below the number of a helpline – underscoring it twice in black.
Gurtha had kept the piece of paper and gave the purse to Paddy with its twenty pound note and spare coins. Paddy had then pressed it to his chest.
“I’ll keep it for her. She wouldn’t want to lose it. Nuala is careful with money.”
♥
Now watching Paddy pull his croissant apart, an unbearable thought floated into Gurtha’s head and lingered for a while – ‘Was it possible that Paddy murdered Nuala?’ A second thought immediately followed – ‘Why had Gurtha not shown that piece of paper to the Police investigating Nuala’s murder?’
He looked at Paddy who gave him a smile as he pushed the last morsel of croissant into his mouth. Disturbing thoughts continued to bubble up in Gurtha’s head. If it wasn’t Paddy, who was it that was Nuala frightened of? What had made her write that number down and underscore it twice?
He lifted the coffee cup to his lips and looked again at Paddy. Paddy winked at him. Gurtha winked back and a flash of inspiration occurred to him. He could ring the number which Nuala had underlined and ask if Nuala had been in contact. He hit himself on the head with the palm of his hand - why had he not thought of that before?
The Secret Wound Page 7